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P.O.V.
UK 2014
produced by Mercedes Amezola Artola, Daniel Vallecillo, Richard Anthony Dunford for Kerzam Limited
directed by Richard Anthony Dunford
starring Tom Clear, Karl Kennedy-Williams, Tuula Costelloe, Lewis Saunderon, Jamie Langlands, Sarah Harkins, Chloe Oram, Judson Vaughan, Gil Sutherland, Stephanie Hazel, Sophie Flack, Alexandra Dionelis, Stephanie de Giorgio, Veronica Jean Trickett, Amber Bayley, Ryan Moss, Matthew Harrison-James, Jessica Dowden, Carrie Higgs, Joseph Dewey, Tuesday Sakura, Layla Louise, Brigitta Makk, Cristina Mejía, Petroula Kaneti-Dimmer, Christine Hounslow, Lee Brookman, Amy Holmes, Toby Liszt, Patrick Vincent Lee, Luke GMH Bassett, Carey Thring, Cat Arnell, Rimca Karmakar, Natalie Cole-Baker (as Natalie Nelson), Stacey Robertson
written by Richard Anthony Dunford, special effects makeup by Jess Heath
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Zack (Tom Clear) has just been ditched by his girlfriend (Sophie
Flack), and now his friends (Karl Kennedy-Williams, Lewis Saunderson,
Jamie Langlands) organize a party in a dilapidated former care facility
they're presently renovating just to cheer him up - with booze, girls
(hopefully) ... and a handful of pills nobody knows what their effects
might be. And it's off to your typical start for a party like this,
everybody's drunk or stoned, somebody tells a scary story about the place
nobody really believes but everybody does, and eventually, Zack ends up in
a room with a hottie (Tuula Costelloe) who's more than eager to have sex
with him ... and then she turns into a demon - and when Zack calls for
help, she slaughters his best friend. Then everybody in the place turns up
dead, and those who aren't have gauged out their eyes, just like in the
story Zack has been told. Or they look all burnt - again, something from
that story. Then though, Zack gets his hands on a handgun ... and the
first person he shoots is the girl he was hoping to score with (Chloe
Oram), and he only now realizes not everybody's a monster or disfigured or
whatever - but it's already too late, the others are closing up on him,
and even the police ... and then reality starts to slip ... As
the title already readily suggests, P.O.V. is a, in lack of a
better term, first person or point of view movie, an approach that has
eventually found its (rather questionable) peak in the "found
footage" subgenre (which P.O.V. most definitely is not. And
frankly, since the movie is told in real time (until reality dissolves),
the exposition is not really great - it's quite alright, since the
characters are good, have good dialogue and move the story along, but
"real time" and screen time are not always the easiest of
bedfellows. However, once the action sets in that hardly matters, and
actually the first person approach starts to work in the movie's favour,
getting the audience much closer to the character than usual in your
typical horror movie. And from here on the whole thing is also wonderfully
paced, never taking the P.O.V. approach as an excuse for padding but
placing all the shocks where they belong, and the finale's really amazing! Definitely
worth a look!
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